Saturday, March 31, 2012

The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) will hold the 32nd edition of The AIPAD Photography Show New York, one of the world’s most important annual photography events, this weekend, March 29 – April 1, 2012, at the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street in New York City.
Seventy-five of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will present a wide range of museum-quality work, including contemporary, modern, and 19th-century photographs, as well as photo-based art, video, and new media. The AIPAD Photography Show New York is the longest running and foremost exhibition of fine art photography. The Show commenced with an opening night gala on March 28, 2012, to benefit inMotion, which provides free legal services to low-income women.
AIPAD 2012 will present four new member exhibitors: David Zwirner, New York; Sasha Wolf Gallery, New York; Paul Cava Fine Art Photographs, Bala Cynwyd, PA; and 798 Photo Gallery, Beijing.

A wide range of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will exhibit at The AIPAD Photography Show New York. In addition to galleries from New York City and across the country, a number of international galleries will be featured from France, Germany, Great Britain, Argentina, Japan, and China.

Tim Hetherington at Yossi Milo Gallery's booth, AIPAD 2012

The Association of International Photography Art Dealers [AIPAD] was organized in 1979. With members in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe and Japan, the Association has become a unifying force in the field of photography. AIPAD is dedicated to creating and maintaining high standards in the business of exhibiting, buying and selling photographs as art.

Since the beginning of art and in every medium, depicting the human body has been among the artist's greatest challenges and supreme achievements, as can so easily be seen by Museum visitors walking through the galleries of Greek and Roman statuary, African and Oceanic art, Old Master paintings, or Indian sculpture. Tapping veins of mythology, carnal desire, hero worship, and aesthetic pleasure, depictions of the nude have also triggered impassioned discussions of sin and sexuality, cultural identity, and canons of beauty. Controversies are often aroused even more intensely when the artist's chosen medium is photography, with its accuracy and specificity—when a real person stood naked before the camera—rather than traditional media where more generalized and idealized forms prevail.
In the medium's early days—particularly in France, where Victorian notions of propriety held less sway than in England and America, and where life drawing was a central part of artistic training—photographs proved to be a cheap and easy substitute for the live model. While serving painters and sculptors, many nineteenth-century photographic nudes were also intended as works of art in their own right. Still others bore the title "artist's study" merely to evade government censors and legitimize images that were, in fact, more likely intended to stir a gentleman's loins than to enhance his aesthetic endeavors. Outside the realms of art and erotica, photographic nudes were made to aid the study of anatomy, movement, forensics, and ethnography.
In twentieth-century art, the body became a vehicle for surreal and modernist manipulation and for intimate odes to beauty or poems to a muse. Beginning with the sexual revolution of the 1960s, nudity and its representation took on new meanings—as declarations of freedom from societal strictures, as assertions of individual identity, as explorations of sexuality and gender roles, and as responses to AIDS. Naked before the Camera surveys the history of this subject and examines some of the motivations and meanings that underlie its expression.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Sandringham is a suburb 15 minutes or so from downtown Auckland. Californian bungalow style houses on large plots line orderly grids of tree shaded streets. I wandered these quiet streets early yesterday morning in hard Autumn light under an ice blue sky. Here are some photographs.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The Guggenheim Museum's 264 page catalogue to Rineke Dijkstra's retrospective is now available. The volume is the first comprehensive monograph on Rineke Dijkstra to be published in the United States. The catalogue accompanies the first U.S. mid-career survey of this important Dutch artist's work in photography and video; it features the Beach Portraits and other early works such as the photographs of new mothers and bullfighters, together with selections from Dijkstra's later work including her most recent video installations. Also included are series that she has been working on continuously for years, such as Almerisa (1994-present), which documents a young immigrant girl as she grows up and adapts to her new environment. The catalogue features essays by exhibition curators Jennifer Blessing (Senior Curator of Photography at the Guggenheim) and Sandra S. Phillips (Senior Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).

The Observer has recently launched an online monthly guide to the best of what's happening in photography, including both exhibitions and books. The overview is presented in the form of a slide show and is well worth a look, HERE.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

I'm starting to think about which photographers we might invite for the January 2013 AUT St Paul Street Gallery photography workshop here in Auckland. For those readers of my blog who may have been to a past workshop or those perhaps considering attending next year, if you have any ideas and suggestions of particular photographers who might rock your boat, please email your thoughts to me at: harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz

As a reminder as to who we've had over the past seven years of workshops, there has been, Antoine D'Agata, Peter Bialobrzeski, Lewis Baltz, Slavica Perkovic, John Gossage, Alec Soth, Rineke Dijkstra, Paul Graham (twice), Todd Hido, Pieter Hugo and curator Quentin Bajac.
I look forward to your suggestions. And if you'd like to register your interest in the 2013 workshop now, you could also drop me an email.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Harper Levine, photobook seller from East Hampton NY, never fails to excite and amaze with his offerings of rare and exceptional photobooks. Here is selection he is offering at AIPAD Photography Fair which opens in New York tomorrow.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Luke Willis Thompson's work inthisholeonthisislandwhereiam is a demanding, brave and highly personal work, as confrontational as Tracey Emin's 1999 readymade My Bed but without the fuck you attitude.

Viewers are driven by taxi from the artist's central city gallery, Hopkinson Cundy, to a Victorian period villa in the suburb of Epsom and left to wander through the rooms of the house. Immediately, ones concept of house and home is challenged. Many viewers, I imagine would come from a decidedly Bobo background and this house is far from that. Run down, dirty and packed with junk. Seemingly unloved, disrupting the idea of home comfort, security, warmth and nurture. And yet there is humanity here in the small things. Religious icons a sign of beliefs held, music and a piano, cats, kids toys, family photographs. Normal things. Yet, there is something else. I'm left with an unsettling feeling of an unspeakable past, of horrific events that have happened here that we don't want to know about.

The readymade is about modification and I'm looking for that as I walk through these rooms. But I can't see it. This opens up the nature of perception, what are we really looking at here? I'm thinking of impermanence, the passage of time, the essence of things and our own highly subjective, filtered view of reality, of what and how we see.

This work is a profoundly estranging experience, one that asks more questions than gives answers. It lingers with me still and is not to be missed.

Transport to the Epsom site is provided by Hopkinson Cundy. The work can only be viewed strictly during gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 11am-6pm and Saturday 11am-3pm up until March 31st. Allow approximately 45 minutes to view the work in its entirety. Bookings (especially for more than 4 people) are appreciated but not essential.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Recently I came across this site, Lost in Publications. The site offers a comprehensive overview of the work of a handful of photographers all of whom I admire. These include Rob Hornstra, Rinko Kawauchi, Rineke Dijkstra and most recently Paul Graham.

The sites author, Sören, has traced the evolution of Graham's practice with images from his bookworks and commentary. Well worth a look and a read.

Included in the text is this pointed quote from Paul which comes from an interview with Aaron Schuman in the online photography magazine SEESAW. The interview is well worth a read, you can go to it HERE. "I’m very interested in what keeps this medium alive and moving forward, not just for myself but for the readers/viewers/public. We can all point out cases of rather dead, moribund photography, even sincere reportage photography, where however worthy the intentions of the photographer, however hard they have worked, they’re using a language that has essentially dried up and fails to reach people. If the images have become clichéd, it’s self-defeating."

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Foam annual Talent Call is designed to showcase exceptional young photographers from all over the world. Every year, Foam Magazine dedicates its Fall issue to publishing the work of 15 selected talents. It is a springboard into the international photography world for these artists, giving them international recognition and acclaim. Last year the winning portfolios were chosen from over 800 submissions worldwide. Submissions close on the 16th April 2012. Foam Magazine #32 Talent will be published in mid September 2012. Previous winners have been Taryn Simon and Pieter Hugo.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Jörg Colberg publisher of the brilliant photography blog Conscientious has just written a piece, How to make a photobook.

Jörg writes: There actually is no simple recipe for photobook making. If you asked ten people about how to make a photobook, you’d probably end up with ten different answers. That said, from what I can tell, most photobook makers seem to agree on quite a few things. So I thought I’d throw my own thoughts into the mix. I hope that some people might find them useful. I am perfectly aware that there are many, many details I’m can’t cover in the following. What is more, you might not agree on some of the details. Let me say this again: The following is not intended to be the recipe to making a photobook. What I do think, though, is that it contains many crucial aspects of photobook making.

If you are even remotely thinking about making a photobook Jörg's article is essential reading. You can go to the full piece HERE.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Took my camera for a walk yesterday, wandering the streets around my home. An afternoon of Autumn breezes, gray skies and moments of patchy sunlight. Rain on the way. Days getting shorter with Winter around the corner. Here are some photographs.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The interest, bordering on obsession with photobook collecting and the associated escalating rise in prices continues with most of the major auction houses offering dedicated photobook sales. The latest, Thursday of week is at ADER - Nordman, Paris.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

William Eggleston: a dedicated auction at Christie's New York on March 12th. In their latest series of single-artist sales Christie's last night presented to the market a collection of classic Eggleston photographs, 36 lots in total. The pigment prints were in a new large format, 112 x 152 cm, all in an edition of two.Philippe Garner, Christie's International Head of Photographs, evokes the qualities that make Eggleston's work so special:

Here are photographs in which the commonplace becomes strangely compelling; emotionally neutral suburban scenes that might otherwise appear to have little character are transformed by the subtle embrace of a warm, early-evening light; everyday things, including the most banal elements of domestic interiors that would normally fail to attract our attention, let alone our curiosity, succeed in indelibly fixing their forms, and their very existence, in our consciousness. Eggleston’s discreet roving eye moves fluidly through space, lingering briefly and surely to capture the alignment of elements that will constitute a picture that has integrity and quiet expressiveness. How does one begin to characterise or explain the very particular sensibility expressed in William Eggleston's photographs? Perhaps there is no adequate verbal equivalent to the pictorial results of this singular photographer's on-going existential enquiry. His pictures just are – without an evident agenda, yet subtly authoritative in their suggestion of a fatalistic reading of the physical world in all its serendipity and seeming randomness. The distinction between what may be described as ugly or beautiful becomes irrelevant, trivial. These images are softly insistent on being read on their own oblique, unstated terms. Their tenacious subliminal impact has earned an ever-growing appreciation. The photographer gives his audience opportunity to sense his view of the physical world, proposing the elements of a relationship of a very particular order, one that is ever-curious, yet non-judgmental, accepting, and touched with a fine-tuned, one might say poetic susceptibility.

Post script: Last week’s William Eggleston auction at Christie’s was an enormous success. All 36 photos up for sale were sold for a total sum of $5,900,250. Profits from the sale will go to the Eggleston Artistic Trust.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Anybody who has ever made a photobook has started out with a system, a methodology of going about it. A way of (hopefully) making it brilliant. Much has been said about this subject and guidelines laid down by people who know more than most. Think Gerry Badger and John Gossage. Yet still, why is it that so many photobooks I look at just don't cut it?

Right now I'm in the process of editing, sequencing and designing a new bookwork so this post is really written to myself, a reminder of things I must remember not to forget. I've written about this before but the fundamentals can bear repeating over and over again. Here goes.....

1. Have a strong compelling idea. Fresh, exciting, demanding. Not derivative or seen it all before.

2. Come up with a riveting, compelling title for the book. And do an amazon check and make sure somebody else hasn't got there first.

3. Start with really good photographs, many more than you will finally need.

4. Including bad pictures will only drag down the good ones.

5. Don't shoehorn in a crap picture just because it fits the idea. Nor include a great picture that doesn't fit the idea.

6. Make a sequence that surprises, challenges and puzzles. Ask more questions than give answers.

7. When you put pictures together don't make the reason blindingly obvious and make sure the sum of the parts is not less than the impact of the individual photographs.

8. Try and sequence the book based on a conceptual flow not purely visually. A sequence made visually is generally too obvious not to mention dull and boring.

9. Don't have more pictures than necessary. A book of around 50 or so pictures will work best. Less is often more.

10. Give the pictures room to breath with plenty of white space.

11. Consider the rhythm and flow of the work. Sequencing photographs is like composing music.

12. Think about what makes a great artwork and make sure what's been done measures up to that. Does the work have a sense of mystery, a veiled narrative and a reason for the reader to want to come back (and back) to consider the work?

13. Don't over-design the bookwork. The book is for the photographs not as a showcase for clever design. In fact avoid "clever" completely.

14. Make sure the work has a feeling of authenticity about it. Avoid the contrived.

15. Make the edit and the sequence and then do it again, and again, because it can always be done better. Always.

16. When you have something you really think works make a book dummy which is a close as possible to the final book. This will give you a sense of the outcome of the work on both a visual and tactile level.

17. Finally, remember there are no rules. And even if you think there are, set out to break them.

In the past I've made bookworks by printing postcard size prints of the potential images and spreading them out on a large table to edit and sequence. Although with this book I did make postcard prints I also went directly to making an indesign document and then converting the work to PDF files as I went. I've ended up with umpteen PDFs that chart the progress of the work, gradually refining and hopefully making the book better. I find this method really flexible and simple and using indesign is a breeze.

The NO pictures

The YES pictures

The book dummy

As an addendum to this post, in an email exchange, Jörg Colberg, founder and editor of the well known and influential blog Conscientious wrote this. All true and good advice.Well, first of all you have to have good photos to make a good photobook. Without good photos, it's an uphill struggle (some books don't need good photos, but they rely on a great concept). And then the concept of the book just has to work. There's a lot of gimmicky work out there, where people are trying too hard to be cool. So making a really good book is very hard, much harder than most people think. And people don't realize that the only thing that will make books stand out is the quality of the whole package, not your elaborate shrink-wrap or whatever you come up with. So yeah, substance it is.

About Me

My pictures explore the strange anthropology of cities. The unusual and overlooked in the human landscape.
I am asking the viewer to question the idea that photographs as documents are complete representations of subject.
I'm interested in the universality of life and the idea of parallel lives - when one thing is happening here, something else is happening over there. The democracy of non-places fascinates me, in the knowledge that inevitably nothing is as it seems.
I work and live between Auckland and Paris.
http://harveybenge.com/
email:harvey.benge@xtra.co.nz